The Savvy Merchant Is You!
by LuckyNumberKing
Summary: An elderly woman. A master criminal. Both of these things, to be precise. Valencia Agrivicci, a sixty-year old Imperial with a shady -if not brutal- past begins her story like all Skyrim protagonists: About to get her block chopped off in Helgen. How will she handle it? Time will tell. Heavy OC, for obvious reasons. Rated M for "May be too intense as is." I'll play it safe.
1. Chapter 1

The four prisoners rode in the prison caravan, their teeth rattling in their skulls in the bumpy carriage. A farmer, lumberjack, jarl, and -unbeknownst to all others- an international criminal with a bounty worth five million septims rode side by side. She was an Imperial woman by the name of Valencia Agrivicci. The Imperial City knew her better as The Savvy Merchant, a woman who had escaped the prison, dug through the sewers, and stolen an Elder Scroll. That had been her finale in Cyrodil.

She had fled from there to Valenwood, from Valenwood to Elsweyer, and from Elsweyer to The Summerset Isle. There she had made quite a mess, including a rather violent run-in with some Psijic monks. From there she had gone to High Rock, and from High Rock to Hammerfell. At about that time the War had begun, and she was soon little more than a forgotten footnote, which worked all the better for her. Had it not been for a Border Patrol in Falkreath, she would have made it to Morrowind, to loot the Fallen City. Luckily, the Nordic Imperials' ardor in catching her was surpassed only by their incompetence as law-enforcers.

She looked onward towards an obvious military outpost. "Helgen," the soldiers called it, but "Hellhole," was by far more accurate in her mind. It was some backwater town barracked by the desperate Imperial forces before the White Gold Concordat, and nothing more. Instead of emulating her observational nature, the others around her spoke of ridiculous things. Apparently there was some pathetic fight between idiot Nords and other idiot Nords. For the life of her, she couldn't remember why the Imperials hadn't put them down years ago. Across her sat this jarl (Ulfric Stormcloak, they'd said?) with a bound mouth. He was heading this rebellion, apparently, but the bit intrigued her, since he had it exclusively. She turned to ask her captors about it, playing the part of a senile old woman. This was an act she'd been using since she left High Rock.

"Excuse me, dearie, but where am I? And why are my hands bound? And why is that man gagged?" She tried to work in as much innocence as possible. The guard whispered something to the driver, and who retorted with a shrug. The guard turned around to face her. His ragged moustache complimented his foul breath.

"You were caught tresspassin' on the border. The cap'n said to take you in. That man is Stormcloak, and they say he can use spoken magics. Cap'n says he used it to kill the king. Though I don't why I'm tellin' you this, you crazy old bat," he scratched his scraggly chin; "You'll probably forget it in a minute or two." Then he turned back around, commenting to his friend that he should visit a barber in the barracks.

This was not good. Rebel militias and mutinous jarls did not go to prison. They were too dangerous. Mutinous jarls with extraordinary powers were no good, either. In fact, they tended to only be good dead. And that meant that this was no military outpost. No, a powerful man and his army are too dangerous to be left alive: she was being taken with them to an execution ground. So then, escape had to be her principle. But escape could be just as lethal as an execution if she played it the wrong way. She pondered for a moment on her options, as the gates of the town grew nearer. Her hands were bound fast, preventing any handy spells from being used in the immediate future. Her bindings were rope, so the lock pick hidden in her hair was no good either. Maybe she could continue the senility act, and buy herself some time. Then again, maybe she couldn't. And then she heard the gates thunder shut behind her.

The smell of mead and dirt were heavy in the air as the cart shuddered to a stop. Other than a central fortification, the town was as Valencia had expected: Plenty of thatch-roof shacks, bumpkin Nords, and Imperial soldiers. She tensed as the back of the cart opened and the four were instructed to exit. She took in a deep breath and time delineated. In a mere millisecond she pondered her options with expert clarity, for this was her gift. Her ability to fight and use magic was not shabby in the least, but she couldn't compete with any true swordsman or wizard. No, what saved The Savvy Merchant were wits, stealth, and fast feet. So, it was time to use those wits. Since escape from the town was temporarily impossible, and fighting her way out even less so, acting would become her scapegoat.

The line of prisoners straggled forward, with some pathetic minor officer rattling off names as patriots waltzed to their death. As she approached the front of the line, one man tried running from the guards. She remembered him as a man who had scorned Stormcloak for a majority of the ride. His fate was rather ironic, she supposed. He was no bleeding heart, but one steel arrow later his heart was certainly bleeding. She should probably have felt less jovial about a man's cruel death, but she had seen and committed so many atrocities that a concession now would mean an unnecessary and fatalistic guilt trip. No, if anything she should be happy that the numbers of witnesses to her existence were dwindling. Hopefully, she could escape this massacre alone, and save herself the trouble of loose ends. But, ah! Here was this young Imperial brat, scanning a list for her name.

"Prisoner, who are you?" His tone was even more boring at close range. As if her appearance wasn't obvious enough. He spoke to a woman of the Empire with dark eyes, grey hair, and visible wrinkles amongst a swarm of young Nord revolutionaries. How foolish was this soldier, to _miss her name_? But she swallowed her contempt, flashing the tender smile of a Grandmother.

"I'm Helena Ventus, young man, of Chorrol in Cyrodil. The Duchess Cornelia and I-" The man's eyes lurched with a start.

"Ma'am, the Duchess has been dead for 60 years." He cast a sidelong glance at the captain of the guard, who was approaching.

"Why, dearie, what are you talking about? I had a lovely chat with her not two days ago." This time, her voice was layered with a calming, mesmerizing undertone. All Imperials had innate vocal magics in their system, but few could truly utilize the Voice of the Emperor to its full potential.

"Well, I-I- Captain! It's good to see you! Miss Ventus was just telling me about her knowing the-" The Captain, a stout Imperial woman of presumably wartime background, smacked him upside the head. As he nursed his handprint-marred face, his eyes began to flutter, and the beleaguering effects began to dissipate. The Captain addressed Valencia directly.

"No cheap conjuror's tricks in my camp. Try giving us your real name, and we might just delay your execution a day. Plus you've got quite the record, so there'll be no lies. I'd like you to admit yourself, and die with a bit of dignity, if you get my meaning. So, will you give me your name?" When she refused, the Captain simply laughed. "Off to the block, then. We'll make sure your corpse makes it back to the Sewers."

The priestess began reading off their rites, her voice a high warble over the rumblings of the damned. Suddenly, Valencia felt a sharp sense of déjà vu. Where had she seen all of this before? After some comment by a rebel, the priestess unceremoniously ended her sermon and stalked off towards a horse. The offending rebel in question was in short order brought to the block, and the executioner's axe stood at the ready. As he began some preaching of self-righteousness over the Imperials, the axe was brought down remorselessly, _cutting_ his tirade off. Agrivicci chuckled at her own terrible pun, and the Captain -ever serious- beckoned the elderly woman forward. As she took a step, a low whistle howled over the mountains. The previously loud town seemed drenched in silence.

But the Captain pressed on. "I said," she reiterated "To the block. It was nothing but the wind." And Valencia felt a stiff prodding of a sword hilt against her back. She marched forward, feigning arthritic joints, and slowly lowered herself to the bloody block, smiling. She knew that sound, and it was certainly not wind. She had seen -in the Elder Scroll- this place before, and heard that sound. The situation had become an eerily familiar memory, almost a pale shadow when compared to the blinding nature of the Scroll. She had been slowly rubbing her wrists together since the sound began, fraying the ropes _just enough_ to move her hands a fractional distance. In just a few moments, her freedom would be at hand. "_By Meridia, if I make it out of here I'm starting a pilgrimage,"_ she thought to herself.

The low whistle began again, and The Savvy Merchant's smile widened. She continued the subtle, twisting motions with her wrists, watching the pillar to her left. As the executioner raised his axe, the Shadow descended. A great, scaled beast crashed into the tower, shaking the crowd below. After a brief moment of confusion, it roared at the rabble, and all hell broke loose. Fireballs began belching forth from the sky, burning buildings and shattering stone. The executioner, thrown off balance, stumbled for a second and let go of his axe. Agrivicci flicked her wrist, and her Telekinesis spell kicked in. The axe whipped itself underneath the executioner, who proceeded to land his throat against his own razor-sharp blade. The smell of blood mixed sharply with the new scent of brimstone. In a flash, the Merchant was up, and after a bit of finagling with the bloodied axe her bindings were cut loose. As the dragon roared again it took off, dodging the arrows of two-dozen sentries.

But the Savvy -Valencia told herself- care not for mythical beings and magical creatures lest they are of benefit, and so she shook off her awe and scrambled to another tower where some Stormcloak rebel soldiers were now encamped. The Jarl, his gag removed, was talking to his people in a surprisingly calm voice. A dragon, she heard through the noise. A dragon? Well, she supposed it was that or insanity, and the latter was unlikely with this many people involved. Ignoring them, she rushed up a stone staircase adjacent the rebels. She rounded the first twenty steps in four bounds, but a rumbling shake gave her clairvoyance to duck against a wall before she rounded the next flight of steps. It wasn't a moment too soon. Mortar, stone, and dust erupted into an antechamber as the wall was knocked into shattered pieces. The smoking nostrils of a snout protruded inward, and gouts of fire engulfed the space. Even after throwing up a minor ward, the criminal could still feel the heat singing her skin. Too much longer and it would mean roasting, so she backed down a few steps. A minute or two later the dragon ceased, and she heard its roar fading into the distance. She rushed back up the stairs, and turned a corner to look out of her improvised balcony. The town before her was rife with smoke and ash, and what few buildings remained were on fire or collapsing. One such burnt-out husk lay before her, so with a silent prayer, she leapt towards its window.


	2. Chapter 2

Valencia had not entirely judged her angle when she made her jump. She had not missed the window. At least, she had not missed it entirely. Owing to a bit of a bum knee, a jump that should have arched her gracefully through the portcullis instead propelled her headlong at the windowsill. Instead of rebounding off of the building and falling into some burning timbers, Valencia came crashing through the structurally weak wall, summoning an unholy rain of glass shards and splinters in her wake. As she attempted to rise from the rubble, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her right thigh. Then she saw it. One of the pieces of glass had not shattered. It was currently stuck at least five inches into her leg, impaling her nerves and muscles. With a scream of agony, she wrenched the crimsoned piece of glass free, before throwing it across the room. Her blood speckled the walls and floor as it followed its course along the attic. It exploded into crystalline confetti on impact, but she couldn't hear it. Come to think of it, she hadn't heard anything since that dragon had blown the tower wall in.

"Am I deaf?" She thought to herself. But it didn't matter, or at least it wouldn't in a moment. The increasingly violent throbbing in her leg was a reminder of how much blood she was losing to the charred timbers beneath her. That thing needed healing, and it needed healing _fast_. She slid her hands out in front of her, and with a bit of work and flexibility positioned herself with an eagle-eye viewpoint of the trauma. She flexed her left hand, and an invisible wall of force began to clean out the wound, holding new blood in, and forcing old blood out. "Heal," she commanded her right hand, extending her digits as she inhaled… Nothing. Her magicka was too low. Telekinesis was an extreme drain on her system. She began some steady inhalations and exhalations, focusing her thoughts to the center of her palm. Valencia had a rather unique medical experience. She had been trained by a Mages Guild expert in the Imperial City to be a healer. In fact had she not been a criminal, or if she ever wanted to settle down, that would probably become her occupation. However, in High Rock she had stumbled on a set of Dwemer manuscripts that had taught her some rather unorthodox regenerative techniques. Hopefully those would help her now.

"Heal, Damn it!" Valencia's hand spasmed as a rush of orange light cascaded forth. She called this her "base-coat" healing. Magicka rushed across the surface of her skin, erasing minor abrasions and cuts. She felt it rush into her wound, and saw the magicka begin to fill in the hole. When a muscle layer was replaced with pure magicka, the energy solidified into muscle tissue. The next wave of magicka would begin to fill in the layer atop it, and so on. It brought a warm, tingling sensation to her leg, and -as she had suspected- also to the sides of her head. She could hear pops and whistles as cartilage in her inner ear snapped back to its original position, and her ear drums began stitching themselves back up. After she began to hear again, she stopped the spell. Any more at this point would be a waste of magicka, which was at the moment her only weapon. Her leg was only halfway healed, though. With the bone covered, it was time for her more… _Progressive_ healing tactic to shine.

Reaching her hand into her mouth, she plucked out a small piece of a Grand Soul Gem, and what appeared to be a false tooth made of Dwarven metal. It was a small, intricately carved cube with two prongs. Most people assumed that the prongs were there to hold it in the mouth, but most people were not Savvy. Valencia delicately placed the Soul Gem piece between the prongs, and set it down into her wound. She grabbed a piece of wood and bit down hard. Dwemer healing was not pretty. As a race that largely disapproved of recreational magic and religion, the Dwarves had made healing less holistic, and a lot more painful. The cube unfolded itself, straightening a myriad of joints until it bore a sharp resemblance to a spider, albeit with a harsh metallic exoskeleton. It locked itself into position, and fired eight, barely visible needles into her flesh. Regenerative potion was being pumped directly into the wound, and the surrounding muscles and nerves began to grow anew. Then the needles retracted, and the spider's legs (that were barbed at the tip) dug into the muscles, dragging them to a center point directly beneath the soul gem. As the legs regrouped, the soul gem shot a brief charge of energy into the center point, fusing the muscles together. It repeated this action four more times, before finally sealing the skin. The process felt excruciatingly long, but in reality took a mere 90 seconds.

The Soul Gem, its power used up, shattered into a myriad of smaller pieces. The spider bent itself inwards, its plethora of joints collapsing against each other. Eventually, it was just Valencia, with her little box. She paid great care to put it back in her mouth, as it had taken a solid seven months to complete. After her little friend was safely tucked away, she unfurled her leg, taking the briefest of moments to stretch out her bones before she continued her escape. The dragon roared again outside, and the searing hiss of its fire through the air whined sharply through the smoke and ash. The various grunts and cries of the Legion seemed irrelevant in comparison, but they were everything to Valencia. The legion was defending the town, instead of retreating, that was now apparent; all she had to do was find that Captain, and no one would know of the Savvy Merchant's existence. Then, it was on to Morrowind! Valencia finished stretching, let out a strong exhalation, and started down a flight of stairs. She bounded down them, scanning her vicinity for a weapon. Out a window, she could see a charred archer resting against a broken battlement.

Valencia sprinted to the corpse from the house, ignoring the chaos and destruction around her. It would be a waste of concentration to do otherwise. Leafing through the remnants of armor resting -half-burnt- on the smoking individual, she shouldered the quiver of iron arrows, and the Imperial longbow that accompanied it. Drawing an arrow, she homed in on a lone Legion troop who was rounding the corners of buildings and trying his very best to not be seen. By dragons, Valencia hoped, because he was all too visible to her. She let the arrow fly, and it hit the troop in the throat, anchoring him to the wall. She was drawing another arrow as she sprinted past his gurgling form. The Savvy Merchant turned around the corner of a rampart, raising her bow in case of opposition, but she didn't need to. The dragon was hovering above the town, and what few soldiers remained alive were trying desperately to bring it to the ground. "They shouldn't have clustered like that," Valencia remarked to herself.

The dragon released an inferno upon the soldiers in the square, reducing them to little more than pieces of char brick. With a snort of smoke emitted from its nostrils, the great demon lifted itself into the air, beginning a flight path that Valencia reckoned to be Northwest, towards Solitude. Waving it fond farewells, she meandered past the bodies that littered the streets, picking up spare arrows as she went. Now and again she found a few rings and gems in the dust, which she pocketed with fervor. She found that in the absence of septims, an amethyst here and there worked as an excellent surrogate. Her looting spree was interrupted, however, by a distinct snapping of smoking floorboards.

The Savvy Merchant immediately tensed, blowing a lock of grey hair from her eyes, and digging her hands into the mud. In less than two seconds she would either have a bow drawn, or fire flying from her palms; everything depended on the weapon her adversary carried- one rattle, metal plating sliding against itself. Another, the grating of a gauntlet against a sword sheath. Valencia couldn't wait any longer. The risk at this point was too high to overlook. She whirled on toe point, propelling the earth as flaming death while she rose to full height from her crouched position. Much to her chagrin, the fireballs let out an undignified splat as they collided with a ward. Behind the ward was the disheveled face of an Imperial Captain. Both women eyed each other with amused rage.

"Well, now I can not only report a dragon attack, but bring a grand thief's head on a platter. Aside from losing a whole platoon, I don't see a downside to this day."

"Don't kid yourself, Imperial bar wench. I've outwitted and out-maneuvered far more intelligent officers than you. This can only end one way, dearie, and I'm afraid it'll be _your_ head on a platter, not mine. "

Valencia had been building up her magicka this entire time, and had a reserve plan in the works. As the Captain snarled with rage and brought her sword out to strike, Valencia let loose a lightning bolt at the ward. As expected, it was insufficient to protect the Legion, and it shattered on impact. In addition to jolting the officer's left arm, the spell had the added benefit of sending her into a topspin, inevitably propelling her to the ground. When the officer looked up, an arrow was pointed between her eyes.

"Any last words, fool?" Valencia indulged in a bit of theatrics. This, she kept in memory, was decidedly un-Savvy, and what ensued was most deserved. The Captain, trained in the same Mages College, happened to know a one-shot disarming spell, sufficient in strength to tear the claws off a troll. In Valencia's case, this meant that her bow, arrow, and body were repelled through the air roughly fifteen feet. She came down hard, with a thud in the mud. Her back sent shooting pains to her head, but she had no time to acknowledge it. The Captain had walked over to her, a dagger in hand, to finish the job.

Rega Aurelius was intent to finish the job and get some R & R. She was sweating profusely, had severe burns on her legs, and couldn't feel her left arm. Now, this old woman was going to get her just desserts, and damn well like it. She knelt over the crippled woman, taking a moment to gloat.

"Did you really think killing me would've saved your sorry ass?" She laughed, bringing the knife to hover over the crone's heart. "I sent a courier to Castle Dour informing them of your arrival. Were you expecting me to pretend like the thief of an Elder Scroll was less important than an insurgent king? Oh, no. My message was simple: 'Have located Prisoner SM7, due for execution.' The follow up will be the delivery of your corpse, and then the Legion will have justice." She felt a swelling of righteousness in her chest.

But Valencia's next move really through her for a loop.

She jerked to her side while simultaneously forcing the Captain's hand down. It resultantly drove the dagger straight into the Thief's side, in a non-vital area by her intestines. With their faces inches apart, Valencia's voice dropped to a dangerous hiss.

"The 'Legion's Justice' is what brought three guards against my unarmed son when he was two days late on mortgage. The farm was his only opportunity," here Valencia's grip stiffened to stone around the Captain's wrist, "And they took it from him, along with his wife." The Captain started flailing her hand to escape. "But unlike my son," she whispered, as the Imperial Legion drew a fist, "I am never unarmed."

Valencia's left hand drew a lock pick out of her hair, before promptly jabbing it into the other Imperial woman's carotid artery. The hands were released as they scrabbled to remove the fatal steel. In finality, Valencia wrenched the dagger free from her side, and drove it home through the Legion's ribs.

An hour later, she hobbled out of the burnt city's gates. She had a supply pack, her wound bound, and some useable weapons. She watched the deep purple hues of the twilight sky meld with a fitting crimson, and breathed deeply. Alone, for all intensive purposes a wanted woman, and trapped within a frosty, war-ridden, backwater rock, she considered the possibilities. There was always the courier, she supposed. But perhaps there were… other opportunities. An ignorant populace, insecure capitals, war-profiteering… "In fact," she reflected, "For the Savvy, there are always _many_ opportunities." She smiled, and began her hobble towards Riverwood.

They had no idea what was coming.


End file.
